Thanksgiving and the Rise and Fall of the Bird Empire

I was struck yesterday reading this report that the population of wild birds in the UK has dropped by 44 million since 1966. The calculation comes from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the British Trust for Ornithology, and others. Today's 166 million nesting birds numbered 210 million in 1966. Which means that for every five birds you might have seen while strolling the British Isles 46 years ago you'll see only four now. Our world grows quieter... Or does it?

To put it bluntly there are shiteloads of birds today. Just not as many in the air or on the waters or in the forests or grasslands or islands like there used to be. Many are in coops and worse. The lucky ones are free range. Globally we now eat almost as much poultry as pork, the number one meat consumed. Domestic birds thrive albeit mostly miserably.

And wild birds decline. The National Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Count reveals that North America's most common birds in decline are down 68 percent since 1967—from 17.6 million to 5.35 million. Some species have declined 80 percent in the past 4.5 decades.

What's hopeful for me is that many of these depressing data come from something new and refreshing: the rise of citizen science. The Christmas Bird Count is the largest and oldest citizen science effort underway, according to Wikipedia. It transformed a bloody 19th century ritual—an annual day-after-Christmas no-holds-barred bird hunt to kill whatever, wherever, the more the merrier—into a bird count. Courtesy of the unusual foresight of ornithologist Frank Chapman, an officer in the newborn National Audubon Society. I'm thankful for that. And for where the next 100 years of that awakening might lead us.